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FMP | Evaluation

Thursday 16th May ____________

I really enjoyed the final unit of the year. It was great to sink my teeth into a project that I could self-direct, and doing it about the Birkett family name was really special and I have learned so much about my family, and Birkett’s around the world.

In terms of my final outcomes, I am really pleased with the quality of my book, ‘Birkett 21’. The printing quality is very high standard, and I spent a very long time carefully stitching the book into a coptic bind. I also took a lot of care over the cover, which previously I may not have done. The cover was an integral part of the design of the book, and I think the dark blue and black works brilliantly against the white of the main content.

Also looking back at how much the project has developed since my first trials, it really is like night and day. Each time I’ve done a major revision, it’s been quite a big step forward I feel.

In terms of time keeping, I was on track for pretty much the whole time, but I certainly felt a rush and pressure in the last week. I expect this is naturally because of a deadline looming, but I felt it more this unit. Saying that, I don’t believe it has affected my deliverables.

With my branding, I am pleased with the overhaul I’ve done to my general image, business cards, portfolio, CV and website. It’s a huge contrast to my previous branding and I’m looking forward to printing out a big stack of business cards!

If I could go back, I would probably have got started on actually designing my book earlier than I did. I felt the first few weeks were heavily research based and thinking of ideas, but I think it would have helped if I actually got designing sooner.

It feels strange to think that this is my last university project, and I’m not sure where the time has gone. I can’t believe how much I have progressed since I started in 2016. I started without any proper graphic design background, and I’d never touched InDesign before in my life! I had no idea about typography or layouts or grids, but now I feel I know them pretty well, and I am so thankful to my tutors who have helped me for the last three years. I’ve had so much fun at VisCom.

FMP | Final piece

Wednesday 15th May ____________

Here are studio photographs of my final completed book. I am so pleased with how it turned out. I spent a very long time on the stitching to make sure not to crease or bend any of the papers, and I think with the blue covers it looks really slick and professional. The cover has a lovely finish to it, and the book feels great to hold in your hand.

The coptic bind allows the book to lay perfectly flat at any point.

My graphic systems have worked really well, and the fonts have also worked well in combination together.

Look at that bind!

Branding | Portfolio pages

Tuesday 14th May ____________

I spent an hour in the photography room to take some photos of my new projects to put them in my portfolio pages.

These will be refined after hand in before the exhibitions, but I’ve included 8 projects. These may be whittled down to 6, but I’m proud of all of them so have featured them. The portfolio uses a simple system for image display, and follows my new branding for the descriptions, which are also minimal.

FMP | Final developments

Monday 13th May ____________

These are some example spreads of my final book design, which has been designed at 230 x 190 mm. The main changes since last week are the addition of newspaper front pages and news story images, and I have updated the visual system so the date is far more obvious, and it appears on each spread at the same size.

I’ve also added a timeline across the top of the page. The border content wraps around the timeline mark where necessary. It’s an easy way to navigate the book quickly. The book ranges from 1893 to the present day in 2019.

I’ve also streamlined the year information page so it’s now just an overview of the key main news story and popular culture, probably the two main things you’d want to read.

I’m really pleased with the way it’s turned out. I’ve still kept my final page unique with my own photograph instead of a location image. I have done this because I think people reading this would be interested to know who I am as the author, and also I haven’t had access to images of all the other people due to privacy reasons.

I now will print it out, paginated, and get to work on coptic binding it.

FMP | Cover design

Sunday 12th May ____________

I am coptic binding my book, so the cover will be in two separate parts, one at the front and one at the back.

I would like it to be blue card (as thick as possible), and then black laser printed onto the front. Here is the design for screen, but hopefully it will look really nice when printed.

The design follows the graphic systems of the main book, with the same type sizes and layout.

FMP | News images

Saturday 11th May ____________

These are the images relating to the news story of the newspaper. These images will appear next to the newspaper front page in my book. The images will have a short caption next to them. In no particular order, here are some of those images.

FMP | Newspaper research

Friday 10th May ____________

After the tutorial suggestion, I had a meeting with one of the librarians to see if she could help me access some old newspaper front pages. AUB Library have access to the Times newspaper digital archive, dating back to the 1700s, and they have copies of each newspaper front page since then.

This was great news, and meant that once I found when the key news story of the year was, I could find the relevant newspaper and take that front page and put it in the book.

Here are some of the front pages.

It’s actually really interesting to see how the design of them has evolved over the years. In the 1800s and early 1900s there were no images and no headlines. Compare that to the present day and you have a massive feature image and headline.

FMP | Final tutorial

Thursday 9th May ____________

Today was the final tutorial of the unit, and I showed the developments I posted yesterday. The comments were positive, but left me with quite a few updates needing to be done. The main thing was that it just needed that last little thing to make it really engaging to read. The tiled information was a bit boring.

One suggestion was the addition of a timeline at the bottom, which is an idea I really like and hadn’t really thought of, so I will experiment with this. Another is just to make the year and the 21 much more clear. That needs to be the focus. Also, consider adding in newspaper front pages of the story that is discussed, and add a photograph to give the reader a clear context of the times that person was living in when they were 21.

FMP | Developments

Wednesday 8th May ____________

Further developments since last week. The main changes are that I’ve tried to put more of an emphasis on the 21 and the year, and I’ve also decided to remove the insert pages and instead just include all the information on the main pages.

Birkett worldwide front spread, with the first name larger than the surname, followed by part 1 of the survey.

The next spread features part 2 of the survey (being 21), and there is information next to it about that year they were 21. There is a tile for an overview, a tile for a key news story and another for popular culture.

Similar concept for the Birkett family pages, but again with the blue instead of green, and a profile photo for me instead of a location.

I will take this to the tutorial tomorrow and make some more edits based on that feedback.

Branding | Website updates

Monday 6th May ____________

I had recently updated my website in February, but I’m applying my new branding to the website, with the new feature colour mainly. Applying the font is tougher, but I’m hoping to change this when I can. I will also update the website with my new projects once I have photographed them.

mattbirkett.co.uk

Branding | CV

Sunday 5th May ____________

New branding applied on an updated CV. I’ve refined it a lot so the sections are just ‘About’, ‘Notable Past Projects’, ‘Other Achievements’, ‘Education’ and ‘Experience’. I’ve tried to keep descriptions of each job minimal, as I know potential employers will have possibly hundreds of these to sift through, and they will just want to know straight away what’s what.

Again, like the business cards, I am really pleased with how this new CV has turned out.

Branding | New branding and business card

Saturday 4th May ____________

Here are photos of my new business card, and you can see my new branding in application. I’ve gone for a light blue theme, using Proxima Nova as my brand font.

On the front it’s a block colour with white text, saying my name and my job title.

On the back it is white with my name in a blue box, and then job title, location, and contact information at the bottom.

I’m really pleased with the new design, and this will carry over into my CV, portfolio pages and website.

Branding | CV design research

Friday 3rd May ____________

Another element of the branding is the CV, and like with the business cards, I’ve looked at some examples of CVs to see how they could influence the direction of my new CV.

In my humble opinion, I think a lot of CVs try far too hard to be ‘designed’, and actually detract from the important stuff which is the information. Therefore trying to find examples that I truly like has actually been quite a challenge. I really want my CV to just be a well set typographic piece. No fancy graphics, no wacky design, just a good piece of design.

This is still even too designed for my liking, but in terms of typography I think it’s treated really well.

This does the job brilliantly. Yes, it’s Lorem Ipsum, but everything is clear, from the name, to the about section, contact details, education and experience. Two colours, job done!

Similar to the previous example, but ever so slightly more designed, probably to go with her existing brand. My criticism of this is that her line spacing needs work, as it’s sometimes unclear in the experience section what dates go with which job. ______

Sources: https://creativemarket.com/bilmaw/3117646-Hasia-Pitch-Pack?u=bilmaw https://creativemarket.com/bilmaw/275131-ResumeCV-Jamie?u=bilmaw

Branding | Business card research

Thursday 2nd May ____________

A smaller part to this unit is our personal branding, where we have to show examples of it in application (the main things being a business card, CV, portfolio and website). I want to give my brand a complete overhaul this year, and to start with I am going to look at business cards.

Here are some business cards I’ve found as inspiration for designing my own.

Embossed front (although this makes it very hard to read), but I like the back with the main contact information. It’s very clear, no fancy design, and functional.

This is my favourite of the examples. It says who they are on the left, and their job title on the right with contact information below it.

Graphic on the front, and then all caps information on the back. Their logo reminds me of a bank for some reason though, so it looks a bit like a credit card!

Portrait business cards. Not something you see that often, but it makes you question why business cards have to be landscape. It actually means you can read the information better in a way, and you can be more free with the space. ______

Sources: https://www.behance.net/gallery/40234331/Vitke https://abduzeedo.com/daily-design-inspiration-60 https://abduzeedo.com/daily-design-inspiration-62

FMP | 1 to 1 tutorial

Wednesday 1st May ____________

I sat down with Sally today to go through the developments I posted yesterday. The main pointers were to consider the grid structure of the insert pages, if I do them. They may not be totally necessary. The grid needs to be designed to allow the main page content to be seen in one full complete column, un-blocked by the insert (at the moment it covers a column slightly).

Also, could 21 Birkett’s be included in this, for a nice round number? Depends on if I get any more responses to the second survey.

Can I be a bit more dynamic with the type on the insert pages? Design a set of detailed systems and sequences to guide the design going forward.

FMP | Developments

Tuesday 30th April ____________

I’ve developed my piece a long way in the last week, and I’m starting to really feel like it’s coming together. The main changes are the font, with Courier changing to Garamond Pro, and I’ve also devised a clear visual system.

I’ve also included border information, such as the occupation, location, year, family relation and name.

Introduction page, with a section of thank yous to those who helped me out, and then a note from me about what this book is about

Profile headshot on the left, full bleed, and then the name on the right.

Questions in blue, replies in black, different fonts. Location picture bleeds over onto the next page. Captions in lighter blue.

Insert pages remain, but have been widened and now instead of the survey answers they have information on the year.

Slightly different format for the Birkett worldwide entries, without a profile headshot, and instead getting straight into the content, with an introductory paragraph from me at the top.

Location image again, but reversed side.

I’m really pleased with these developments and I think it gives a good base for me going forward with the creation of the other pages.

FMP | Survey #2 responses

Monday 29th April ____________

As mentioned previously, I received 20 responses to my original survey. I sent a follow up survey to those 20 asking them for some more replies, and I received 8 replies to that (so far).

Again, some replies were more helpful than others, but the answers are just what I needed to give me my content for the Birkett worldwide side of the project. Here are a selection of answers.

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